Strong showing for Tigers' defense

AUBURN – Auburn defensive coordinator Will Muschamp saw good, bad and ugly in Auburn’s 23-13 victory Kansas State on Saturday. Mostly good.
The good starts with the bottom line.
"Whenever you win, you did something right," he said. "That's the obvious thing I always look at. I thought that, other than the first drive, we played much better on third down. That was the key to getting off the field. We had five three-and-outs."
Kansas State scored one touchdown, wide receiver Jordy Nelson’s 21-yard pass off of a lateral to running back Leon Patton in the third quarter.
"We played well in the red area, other than the one trick play they hit on us," Muschamp said. "I thought they had great effort, and the kids competed. That will win you some games with great effort and pursuit to the football. I was real pleased with that.
"On the negative side, we had 15 missed tackles, and we missed plays in space. That was disappointing, but it’s all correctable. We didn't leverage the ball the right way at times and started off slow a little bit. The first drive, there was nothing new they did in the first drive we had not prepared for. We just didn't execute very well, and they did."
Defensive end Antonio Coleman led the way on Muschamp’s production-points system with 34. Defensive tackle Pat Sims had 29.
"Antonio Coleman, Pat Sims, (end) Quentin Groves, (cornerback) Pat Lee, (cornerback) Zach Gilbert all produced high," Muschamp said. "Real pleased with those guys. Real pleased with (middle linebacker) Chris Evans coming in there with Tray (Blackmon’s) injury. (Safety) Zac Etheridge played the entire game. (Safety) Eric Brock played well for us. There were some guys that stepped up, Zach Gilbert, that came in and played some quality snaps for us and played well. I'm pleased to be able to go to those guys and feel good about it."
-- Joe Medley